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The Canada Page Loves
Toronto!
Common knowledge may have it that Toronto is a plague ridden city full of SARS ridden patients, potentially deadly meat, blackouts and West Nile bearing mosquitoes. Common knowledge may in fact be correct. Nevertheless, whatever is in the media, Toronto is a great place and a safe city. Your humble author travels to T.O. every weekday and often on weekends to take in the stores, cultural life, bars, etc. So in order to do my part - I decided to visit the CN Tower - Toronto's land mark and humble phallic symbol to show support for my some-what city and what a rockin' place Toronto can be. The CN tower has always been a favourite of mine. I still get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I pass it each day. Perhaps it's because you can still make it out from my city (about an hour outside of Toronto). Or that it really is a man-made wonder of the world. Maybe its just the fact that its really freaking huge in a country that doesn't really have that many comparatively huge man-made things.
Standing at 1815 feet (553 metres) - it is the world's largest free standing tower. (And yes, bigger than those freaking office towers in Malaysia) Other zany facts:
Stephanie's Journey to the Almost Top of the CN Tower: In all honesty, visiting the Tower was more of a random decision rather than a well planned out event. I kind of got lost wandering around Union Station and sorta ended up there.
After noticing that there was no line-up and that I had an hour to kill, I decided to fork out the $20 to go up the tower - something that I hadn't done in about six years. The one thing that I did notice that was different is that the security is now more strict than before. All visitors were required to go through these scanner-type-thingies that blew air on you and apparently tested for anthrax, explosives, what-have-you at the same time. The ride up the elevator takes about a minute. It's a really freaking fast elevator. So fast, in fact, that I really didn't have a chance to take a picture. That's okay though. I don't want to ruin all of the mystery of the CN Tower for you. I'll be honest - I didn't pay to go to the SkyDeck - the really, really, really, high area you can go to. I'm not so crazy about heights - or forking out an extra $6 to go that extra height. But you do get a really great view of the city on the "normal" deck anyway. Check it out:
The part that gets me every time - and by "get" I mean "makes me want to hurl" is the glass floor. I can handle the height. I can handle the really fast elevator taking me up (and down) that height. I can't handle the idea of walking on a glass floor. I tried it once - the last time I visited about six years ago - and I pretty much almost fainted. They hire someone there to tell you how safe it is and that they could put 22 hippos (or soemthing like that) on it and it would still be fine - but I ain't buyin' it! Nevertheless, there is no lengths that I won't go through for my web-audience. So the picture of the floor was basically taken with me inching towards the glass and reaching my arm over it with the camera to take a random shot. I do hope you appreciate it:
So that was pretty much my trip. I only had about an hour to kill - but this was definitely a cool way of doing it. The only disappointment I had was that I had an incredibly bad cell phone connection while I was up there. I mean, you'd think you'd be free from all interference. It turns out I probably was - but I was also above all of the radio towers that gave me a signal. Oh the irony! FYI: The Tower also has an exhibit on the environment and some restaurants. The 360 restaurant is especially cool as you travel in a circle while you're chowing down. You can find out more on visiting the CN Tower here: http://www.cntower.ca/ and there's lots of information on T.O. here: http://www.toronto.com/ C'amon! I know you wanna.
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